


Tactics

by Maple



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Quote Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 20:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple/pseuds/Maple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richie is in trouble; Methos has a long story that might help him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tactics

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for some mild language.
> 
> A quote was used within the story as this was for a quote challenge: "A story doesn't get shorter in the telling if one keeps pointing out how long it is." The Haunted Abbot by Peter Tremayne.

From his vantage point of the leather couch, it looked as if the cat had dragged something in. Methos speculatively rolled his beer around in his hand, and prepared himself to be amused. MacLeod's student was most often annoying, but the afternoon had been slow so far, and Methos was more than ready for something else.

"Is Mac here?" Richie Ryan asked, attention flitting about the loft. His shirt hung off him in tatters, and his hair was plastered to his head.

"Nope."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Nope."

"'k." Ryan trailed dirt and streaked blood on the floor as he walked to the phone. He punched in a bunch of numbers, then scowled at the phone. "Out of service-area, my ass." He punched in more numbers, and glanced at his watch.

"Something I can help you with?"

"Well--" Ryan began hesitantly. "I paged Mac. He should call back any second now."

"Ah." Methos settled back onto the couch. He slowly drank his beer, then got up for another one, and drank that one too.

Ryan stared at the phone so hard that Methos wondered if it might burst into flames.

Five more minutes passed.

Ryan grabbed the phone again and punched in more numbers. "Hello? Yeah. Joe Dawson, please." He crossed his eyes at the phone. "Yes, can you tell him Richie Ryan called and to call him at Mac's as soon as possible. Urgent. Very, very urgent. Thank you." He slammed the phone down.

"Sure I can't help?"

Ryan was busy slamming his fingers onto the buttons on the phone. "I'm just gonna page Mac again. 911 him this time. So he'll know it's really important."

"Ah."

Methos got up for his third, and then his fourth beer. He peered into the recesses of the fridge, counting the number of beers left. When Mac rang back, he'd have to make sure that after Ryan's current emergency-of-the-minute explanation that he put in an order for MacLeod to bring more beer back. And maybe a sandwich. He was starting to feel a bit empty in the middle section.

He glanced back to the mini-drama. Still at the phone, and punching in numbers again.

"--not there yet? Okay, this is Richie again. Do you know when he'll be back?" Ryan frowned. "Well, could you page him for me then?" He reeled off the numbers. After smashing the phone back down again, he turned to Methos. Stiltedly, he ground out. "Would you mind helping me out?

"Of course not." Methos smiled, and tilted his beer bottle in invitation.

"There's this guy. An Immortal. He thinks I slept with his girlfriend."

"Why would he think that?"

"Because she lied to him! I mean, I asked her out, but then we didn't go, and I didn't know that she already had a boyfriend, or that he happened to be Immortal, or that he would fly into a jealous rage."

"And why would she lie to him?"

"How the hell should I know?!" Ryan fumed for a moment, stomping around in a circle. "Maybe because he was cheating on her and she wanted to get back at him, but I don't think she knows that he's Immortal, or that I am, and now the guy really wants my head."

"And you wanted advice? From MacLeod or Joe? Perhaps help in talking to her?"

"Exactly!"

"Hmm." Methos considered the tale. "Well, I remember one time something like this had happened. I was living in the monastery. The head Abbott was twiddling with one of the local girls. Really gorgeous bit of fluff. Head like a melon, though. Empty as the winter night is long."

"So?" Ryan paused to punch more numbers into the phone, glance at the clock, and pace around some more. He found a clean shirt and pulled off the old one.

"Well, her father caught her going in and out at night, of course. Yelled so loud he woke up all the neighbors. Yelled so long he actually lost his voice by the time the sun rose. And they had to go get the local healer, not that she could do anything, you understand, because he'd just yelled himself hoarse, but they had to try. He wasn't done yelling at his daughter, after all."

"What?" Ryan paced to the window and looked out. "Listen, this guy, he's still looking for me. We gotta figure out what to do. Go down there. Calm him down. Something."

"Of course. Of course. But let me finish the story." Methos looked to the ceiling, thinking hard. "Well, it took all of three days before the father's voice came back and until it did, nothing could force the girl to give up who it was she was sneaking off with. The father had hoped to marry her to a merchant or minor-somebody-or-other, anybody a little better off. One step upward to help the whole family, you know the deal. Because she really was quite enchanting to look at, and any man would be happy to have her on his arm. As long as he didn't need any conversation, that is.” Methos paused--Ryan was still prowling the loft--then continued on. “Now, we were up at the monastery and didn't know any of this was happening. In fact, nobody even knew the Abbott was getting extra benefits. We all thought he was the most pious--and the absolute dullest--man ever to be born and take to the cloth."

"What does this have to do with anything?!" Ryan stalked through the loft yet again, paused at the phone to redial numbers, and learned that Joe hadn't called back or checked in.

"Quite a bit," Methos said when he had Ryan's attention again. "Just let me finish."

"Could I get the condensed version? I'm kind of in a hurry."

"A story doesn't get shorter in the telling if one keeps pointing out how long it is." Methos glared at Ryan.

The boy paled just slightly. "Sorry. Go on."

Methos inclined his head and launched into the rest of the story:

How the Abbott was stealing from the coffers. How he'd been lurking about with two other girls down in the village, also, and how their fathers found out. Not that either of the other two girls held a candle to the first for beauty, but then beauty was all relative. How the first girl actually was pregnant, but that later it came out that the Abbott wasn't the only fellow she was visiting at night; she was quite the popular nighttime owl, flitting from nest to nest.

How Abbott had been severely embarrassed, and there was the usual intense and highly unpleasant investigation. Of course the political stresses of the time came to bear, and several other monks who had their eye on a position of more power made sure that the Abbott was harshly prosecuted for his indiscretions. And of how the Abbott finally went mad, after being locked up in an austere sort of room and being given only broth and bread to eat for seventeen days, which caused him to fling himself from his room.

It was only on the second floor, so he didn't actually die, but he broke something, which just made everyone pity him so they stopped the investigation. He wasn't fit to be Abbott anymore, which the younger monks had always intended for the outcome, and he ended up scuttling down the halls at all hours of the night, claiming to see ghosts and trolls.

How the villagers hadn’t made too much of an uproar because it was discreetly discovered that the Abbott had been lavishing gifts on the girls from the pilfered coffers, so all the families actually ended up with quite a bit of stashed wealth.

How the girl had a beautiful baby that turned out to have flaming red hair, and there was only one villager with red hair, so everyone blamed him, so he ended up with a vacant-headed wife, but was the envy of all the village because she really was quite lovely. They had about ten more kids. The father--

Methos stopped. MacLeod walked in and frowned.

Ryan turned and rushed over, story spilling from his lips. "Mac! I need your help!"

Methos grinned and fetched the last beer from the fridge.

"C'mon. Let's go clear this up."

Ryan took off for the door.

MacLeod glanced from Methos to the clock. "How long did you stall him?"

"Three hours. Long enough for the other guy to realize he'd been duped, and go home."

MacLeod nodded and turned to follow Ryan, then paused. He looked back. "Thanks."

Methos saluted him with his beer.


End file.
